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4/16/2010

Yellow Kitty Quilt - Finale

Generally, I have a vague idea about the end result when I start a new quilt. I've been slacking on quiltmaking for a while so when I saw this quilt along by SewTakeaHike I jumped right in without giving too much thought as to how I was gonna finish it off.

I used flannel instead of batting and cut the blocks 11" square so I could trim them to 10 1/2". I love the close quilting by using the presser foot as the guide. I rarely sash my quilts because by the time I'm ready to assemble the blocks my mind has wandered off to the next project and it's all about gettin' er done.

So, the baby quilt that started with 12 blocks, grew into 20 and now gets even bigger with sashing. I used some scrap white muslin and since the blocks were already 2 layers, the sashing needed to be the same so I cut flannel strips for the "fill". I was concerned that it might look too busy without the sashing but after looking at Penny's quilt, I could have skipped it. Her quilt is beautiful!

By now, the whole thing is pretty heavy and it's only a lap size and I still have the backing to deal with. As mentioned above, I've already moved on and don't really want to buy yardage so ended up piecing the back.

This seems like a departure from the usual quilt as you go where the backing fabric is quilted into the block thereby eliminating the push-pull-drag of machine quilting in a 9" space between the head and needle of the machine. The traditional method also skips the pin basting step and there's no chance of getting tucks on the back.

I still have loads of scraps to use up and I'll be making more of these fer sure but I'll make the quilt sandwiches with the backing. In the past, I've sewn the blocks together wrong sides facing, pressed the seam open (front side of the quilt) and then stitched down narrow strips or seam binding to cover them up. By machine, I can deal with some wrestling but for larger quilts, sewing them down by hand is much easier even though more time consuming.

2 comments:

I too want to make more than one of these quilts! My next one will be using up my colourful scraps. You'res turned out beautifully. I also thought about doing the same method of putting the backing on at the same time sewing something on the front to cover up those seams.

Love your quilt! Thank you for sharing about how you put it together. I like both the idea of adding sashing, and the idea of adding backing and sewing the blocks together back side up. I have been following Penny's quilt-a-long, too - and now you have gotten me thinking of new and fun ways to use this method...; )